AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
The 2024 election is still not over in North Carolina. Six months after polls closed, there's an ongoing dispute over who won a seat on the state Supreme Court. Right now, the court leans Republican, and those seats are highly coveted by both parties because of big decisions the court makes, like over abortion or gerrymandering. Joining me now to talk about this is Steve Harrison from member station WFAE in Charlotte. Good morning.
STEVE HARRISON, BYLINE: Good morning, Ayesha.
RASCOE: Steve, it's been almost half a year since the election. What in the world is going on in North Carolina?
HARRISON: Great question. There's a whole lot to explain here. Let's go back to election night. That night, the Republican in the race, Jefferson Griffin, was about 10,000 votes ahead of the Democrat in the race - that is Justice Allison Riggs, who is currently on the court. But over the next two weeks, as more mail ballots and provisional ballots came in, Riggs came out with a tiny lead, 734 votes out of more than 5 1/2 million cast.
RASCOE: OK, so how did Griffin respond?
HARRISON: He moved to have more than 65,000 ballots thrown out. There were three buckets of challenged voters, and we're going to focus on the largest two groups. He says more than 60,000 voter registrations weren't complete, missing a driver's license number, for instance. He also challenged the ballots of roughly 5,500 military and overseas voters from a handful of Democratic-leaning counties because they didn't provide photo ID when casting their ballots. That's even though before and after the election, Republicans on the elections board agreed that these voters didn't need to show photo ID.
RASCOE: OK, so more than 65,000 challenged voters - North Carolina's Republican-leaning Supreme Court has weighed in. What did it say?
HARRISON: The state's highest court said those 60,000 voters whose ballots allegedly have incomplete registrations should be counted. That's a win for Riggs, but - and this is a really big but - the court kept the door open for Griffin to erase his deficit. The court said the challenged overseas and military voters from those Democratic-leaning counties have 30 days to provide a photo ID or their ballots would be tossed. But for now, a federal court has blocked the North Carolina Supreme Court's ruling from going into effect.
RASCOE: OK, so Steve, the case is on pause. I want to go back to the North Carolina Supreme Court ruling. It said overseas and military voters have to show photo ID but only from this handful of Democratic counties?
HARRISON: That's exactly right. And there are two justices on the court who don't think that's fair. One Republican justice, Richard Dietz, dissented and said he was surprised the court would rewrite election law after the election. And Democrat Anita Earls wrote that, quote, "some would call it stealing the election. Others might call it a bloodless coup."
RASCOE: This fight has dragged on for six months, presumably costing a lot of money in legal fees. Regardless of what happens, the Republicans still control the high court, so why all the fuss?
HARRISON: Yeah, I spoke with one former justice on the state's highest court. His name is Bob Orr, and he was a conservative who served for a decade ending in 2004. But he left the Republican Party during the Trump era. He thinks the Trump campaign and the GOP were prepared with similar ballot challenges if Trump narrowly lost North Carolina. He won comfortably, so Orr says...
BOB ORR: There was nothing to lose to see if they could not just flip this one particular Supreme Court seat but make some law that would be favorable to their efforts going forward in future elections.
HARRISON: Griffin's consultant, Paul Shumaker, said that's not right. He said he and Griffin chose his legal team, and Orr is pushing a conspiracy theory. And just one more wrinkle, the Republicans took control of the State Board of Elections on Thursday after a long-running power fight between the governor, who is a Democrat, and the GOP. That could help Griffin throw out enough ballots for him to win.
RASCOE: That's Steve Harrison from member station WFAE. Thank you so much.
HARRISON: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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